Pictorial image multiplication has intrigued man since the invention of the mirror. The barber shop and the clothing store are but two examples of places where a viewer situated between plane mirrors could see multiple images of himself. However while optical image multiplication is known, pictorial image multiplication within an optical device has proven as illusive to inventors as the illusion they hoped to create.
What are apparently the first writings on the subject occur in Magia Naturalis, Book VII, Chapter 2, where Baptista Porta described the effect of two plane mirrors as a machine for multiplying images. An explanation of this phenomenon was explained as early as 1646 by Kircher in Ars Magna Lucis Et Umbrae, Page 89, where the relation between the number of images and the inclination of the two mirrors was developed. Propositions in Harris' Optics and Woods' Optics relate to the multiplication in circular arrangement of the sectors formed by the inclined mirrors and to the progress of a ray of light reflected between two inclined or parallel mirrors.
Sir David Brewster combined these teachings with his own research on light polarization by successive reflection between plates of glass, and developed an optical instrument which he named the kaleidoscope. Brewster's kaleidoscope was capable of receiving colors and abstract outlines, shapes, and patterns into the direct viewing sector and multiplying them symmetrically. Additionally, he was able to optically reduce and focus images from the immediate environment onto the direct viewing sector. These discoveries and refinements were published in 1819 in Brewster's treatise on the kaleidoscope.
In the years since its invention the kaleidoscope has remained a popular amusement device for children and adults alike. A typical kaleidoscope comprises a generally tubular body having an ocular aperture at one end, an object cell at the other end, and a plurality of plane mirrors within the body. The object cell contains a plurality of colored glass chips that may freely tumble so as to assume a substantially infinite number of possible configurations within the direct viewing sector. The kaleidoscope mirrors produce a symmetrical multiplication of the images of the glass chips. The instantaneous patterns that are viewed in the kaleidoscope are themselves often spectacular, but the overall appeal of the device is enhanced by the dynamic effects that are produced as the glass chips tumble from one position to another.
While the number of possible patterns is in principle infinite, there are only a few distinctive classes of chip configurations. Attempts to increase the variety of the kaleidoscopic display have manifested themselves in variations of the basic device wherein more complex tumbling objects are placed within the object cells. For example, it is known to provide partially filled liquid-containing capsules as tumbler objects, to include small familiar objects along with glass chips, and to provide a silhouette of a familiar form. However, efforts to date have not resulted in a material increase in the variability (either qualitative or quantitative) of the patterns available.